


Live Or In Color

by kurokun



Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Feelings and shit, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-06-17 05:13:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15454080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurokun/pseuds/kurokun
Summary: Two childhood friends in the city. Old love. New problems. A drunken promise from days past. Is it better to feel your heart break and watch the fallout from afar, or feel the wreckage tear through you and emerge hand in hand with the only person who's ever really mattered?To be live, or to be in color.It isn't ever that simple.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my friends.
> 
> I know, I know: this isn't an update of a current fic and I have once again derailed and started a new story. You're right and I'm not feeling good about it. But, its the work I've been able to do.
> 
> The best-friends-in-love bit has also been terribly overdone and is generally pretty cliched, but I really wanted to try my own hand at it. In the words of an old mentor, "you write what you know".
> 
> This is only the prologue, but please leave your insight for me. If you like where it's going, I'll post the first full chapter.
> 
> Love always,  
> kurokun
> 
> PS: I know I can't summarize my fics for shit, sorry.

_ I don't even know who I am anymore.  _

I sit still and quiet on the sofa and watch my best friend of thirteen years pace the floor in front of me, seething.

“Who the fuck does she think I am,” he screams, no longer moving and hands bound deep inside a forest of blue vines. He had been growing it out for awhile now, because  _ she _ liked it better, thought it was edgier, thought it made the other girls stare longer.

And maybe, it did.

“She's crazy,” I mumble, hollow. 

_ Fucking Christ, how long have I been this empty? _

_ ‘ _ “And I'm the fucking idiot who took her back!” A ceramic mug explodes, leaving a dusty circle on the concrete wall. 

“You couldn't have known she'd cheat on you again, it's normal to believe someone when they say they're sorry,” I whisper. I have to be the good friend. Have to be.

“She never cried! Not once! She didn't even raise her fucking voice, that's how little she cared!’

“She never fucking deserved you Grimmjow!” 

This time, the words come out confident and strong, an angry, running river that carves away the mountainside. He stops and looks at me with red rimmed eyes from a coke binge, the first time he really looked at me in the past three days, and I wonder if this could ever work. He searches my eyes before looking away and stalking to the back room of my apartment to lock his heart away with a few more lines.

_ Of course it couldn't work, _ I think as the first and only tear I would cry that night slipped below my cheekbone and hurdled to the floor. I stand and open the window in the living room that leads to the fire escape before lighting up and looking out into Tokyo. The moon shines so bright it looks like a liquid mirror suspended in the sky, reflecting the world it observes from above. 

I don’t recognize the man I see.


	2. Complicated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I felt kind of dumb posting just the Prologue since it's so brief. Here's the first full chapter.
> 
> I look forward to hearing for you all.
> 
> kurokun

_ Six months ago… _

“God, again,” he groans, as I try for the fourth time in the past half hour to dispel an erection with only my mind. 

“There...a little left. Yeah, like that, you’re good. Shit.”

The curse is punctuated with a swift roll of his neck, his head angled so I can see his jaw clench.

“Do it again, but slower,” he says softly, thunder rolling from behind the clouds. I think about dead kittens while I move my hands down.

“Fuck,” he breathes in sharply. I feel it from behind. 

“Uh, what the hell is going on?”

Grimmjow raises his head and looks at the woman standing in the doorway to my bedroom. Neither of us heard her come in, and even though I feel like the one who’s tired, it’s him who sighs.

“I was just helping him with the shoulder pain, Matsumoto-san,” I grumble, slowly lowering the arm that holds my friend’s elbow down to his side. I think I see him look at me but I can’t tell either way. I look back to her. “And how did you get in my house?”

“You should know better than to let Grimmjow in and not check the locks after,” she says a little too smugly for my liking. The man in question stands, rolling his shoulder up gently towards his ear before letting it fall slack to his side.

“So you forgot we were meeting Isane and Hinamori for drinks, I see. Is that all you have to wear? You look like you just rolled out of bed.”

He doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t have to. After a few moments of staring, she rolls her eyes and pulls out her smartphone, tapping on the screen quickly as her heels clack on my floorboards. 

“I’ll tell the girls we’ll be late so you can stop at home and change, but make it quick; I’ll expect you to be there to pick me up at eight thirty. And not on the dreadful thing that brought you  _ here. _ ” She punctuates the last syllable with a particularly nasty look at me as I wipe vitamin E oil off my palms, then drops a pair of expensive sunglasses onto her nose. Grimmjow turns to me and grabs his shirt off the foot of my bed, pulling the grease-stained cotton down his torso. I can tell he doesn’t want to look me in the eye.

“It’s fine, dude,” I laugh a little, although it’s not convincing.

“Yeah,” he mumbles and pulls on his boots. We stand there for what feels like ages, completely aware that things are definitely not fine, before a shrill voice rings in the foyer.

“We don’t have all night, time to say goodbye.”

He sneers, lips pulling away from his teeth until I see the canines that tore through most of some kid’s ring finger when we were in primary school. I know I shouldn’t but I put a hand on his back and wait for him to turn to me. 

“Thanks, Ichigo. I’ll see you around.”

“Be easy on that shoulder or you’re going to start damaging your rotator cuff, and I can’t fix that with a deep tissue massage.”

“ _ Hai, hai, ka-chan _ ,” he grins at me, and I can’t help but smile back. He walks out and I hear the door click behind both of them before I fall backwards onto my bed.

It really sucks to be in love with your best friend.

I’ve known Grimmjow Jeagerjaques longer than I’ve known anybody that isn’t family. In primary school, when I was maybe eight, a teacher stood him at the front of the class, wide-eyed and breathing hard with a vicious look on his face. He looked in between the instructor and the wave of peers before him, myself included. I remember that when I looked in his eyes, he reminded me of the stray dog behind my Uncle Urahara’s shoten that my mother told me not to feed. In the weeks following, the blue-haired and eyed foreigner caused quite a commotion in our small school. He didn’t listen in class, didn’t make friends well, and started getting in fights with the older kids. The others called him gaijin and told me to stay away. I’ve never much been for listening to what people tell me to do.

Six weeks after he was added to our class, I sat next to him on a bench at lunch. He looked at me as I told him my name and held my small hand out to him, and I watched his face contort at the syllables. I was afraid I made him angry. He stood up, handed me a stick, and pointed to the ground. After a bout of confused staring he spoke in broken Japanese.

“Write it.”

So I did. I slowly scratched the kanji for my name into the dirt in front of the bench, turning back to him as I finished. He knelt next to me and pulled a book from his pocket, tracing the lines with his fingers as he searched. After a few moments, he looked me in the eye and smiled for the first time since he left the group home in Osaka that all the adults talked in hushed tones about.

“Not fruit,” he chuckled at me, struggling a little with his pronunciation. I laughed too. Weeks passed by and I slowly learned as Grimmjow learned how to tell me that he knew almost no Japanese. He spoke a European language called French, and the same English that I heard my father speak to the occasional American that wandered into the clinic. Dad taught me English early, said a doctor’s son should know more than the average kid; I hated it until I used those words with their strange sounds and structures, backwards and separate, to get to know Grimm. He taught me more words, and by the next summer I was just as good as Dad. In return I taught Grimmjow our language, showed him names and phrases, the subtleties in literature that only we could see. I taught him the rest too, including the curses we slurred the first time we got our hands on a bottle of peach schnapps from one of the older kids at the foster home he learned to avoid.   
Before long we were in high school, Dad pushing a top class education down my throat like good schooling would make me less confused or bring Mom back. Grimmjow got shit grades even though I knew he was so much smarter than me. He thrived with linguistics though, and I would often find him listening to music in other romance languages. I asked him once how many languages he could understand while we were high on shitty weed, and he said it was around six, all self taught. Under the moon that same night in fall of our final year, we stood on the balcony of a friends apartment and he gave me my first square. Drunk and bold, I asked him what he was going to do after school. He looked at me with deep eyes, grinning around the cancer stick, and promised me he’d follow me anywhere as long as it wasn’t Karakura.

I think that’s when I realized I loved him.

We took my college fund and got a studio in Shibuya. He taught me how to figure out the trains so I could get to school. I taught him how to fill out the job applications that lead to his gig at the garage with a monster of a man called Zaraki Kenpachi. We lived and learned in that single room, a mess of boxes and faulty wiring and for me, expectations. I thought things might change if we lived together full time, not just sleepovers for two or three days at a time so he didn’t have to go back to the shell of a house he was placed in. He knew I was gay, and it never bothered him, but he never told me what he was. It gave me hope.

Then one day he tells me this hot redhead with a Lexus came to the shop for a tune up and gave him her number. Rangiku, he called her, first name and everything. The next Thursday, when we would usually stay in and get high and fight over bad TV, he put on the nicest pair of jeans he owned and his only tshirt without grease ground into the fibers and went out for drinks with her. That was almost a year ago. 

Six months ago he told me “Ran” wanted him in a “better area”, and he felt bad about still crashing on my futon after almost three years, so when the lease ended he would go with her. When he packed his two duffel bags of stuff and walked out, I called off three days of work and skipped four classes to clean the smell of him off of every surface I could cover with bleach. No matter how hard I scrubbed, even after giving up on the futon and putting it on the curb, I could still feel him there. I had to move. The college fund and my campus job got me a two bedroom with another student at Rikkyo, named Abarai Renji, who had posted an ad on the campus request board for a roommate. 

Renji showed me clubs and late nights and uppers, and sometimes when we're too high we give in to our bodies on the sofa, or against the kitchen counter, or in the hall if we can’t make it any further. He never asks me to come to his room, and I never ask him to mine. I think he knows without knowing that if he did, it would ruin the whole thing. He’s a good guy. Sweet, even, when he wants to be. He does dishes and vacuums and doesn’t leave his boots in front of the door for me to trip over. But he isn’t Grimm, and as I watch the ceiling fan rotate in the almost silence I remember how bad that actually hurts when I’m sober.

I miss him, but I know I’m not supposed to. I make up my mind. 

I grab my phone to my right and dial a number. It’s a short conversation, and when it ends I stand up and pull a sweatshirt and my Converse on and grab my keys. The train and my long strides get me to Komeda’s Coffee in about twenty two minutes, but my friend is still there sooner, legs curled under him as he tucks a lock of blonde hair behind his ear. He wears a pair of slim but comfortable jeans and a hunter green knit duster over a university tshirt. I can’t see it from the window but I know the coffee cup on his table is full, cooling, a light roast with hazelnut creamer and one sugar packet. The cool fall air drags me into the shop and to his table where I sit and order my black dark roast with a red eye. He doesn’t pull his nose from his sketchbook until I’ve been served.

“Ichi,” he says in his higher voice, eyes really getting a look at the mess I am.

“What is it this time,” I nod to the pad sitting in his lap. He looks down to frown at it before laying it on the table. I pick it up and do a subtle rotation around the shop before stopping at a corner table where a middle-aged woman taps on the keyboard of her laptop before taking some notes. His sketch is the same, but without the woman; he’s been working on stills ever since a professor told him that imagination wasn’t enough to be a good artist and his figures were crap. The keyboard, table, bench seat, notebook, and her tea mug are drawn with soft lines and shading in the café's dim lights. I hand it back to him.

“You’re getting really good, Shin,” I tell him with a real smile, and he gives me one back before closing his sketchpad and looking at me.

Hirako Shinji is a fourth year art major at Nihon’s College of Art and one of my closest friends. We met at a party six years ago, and after convincing him that I was totally uninterested in him sexually, we discovered we had lots of things in common. Primarily, that we were both very gay and really wanted to get out of our hometown. We moved to Tokyo within a year of each other, both for university. He was enrolled as a fine arts major and planned to complete Nihon’s graduate program, too. Although I have never had any aptitude for art whatsoever, I saw him grow and progress semester after semester. Before long he was inviting me to shows in posh galleries in the city that I had to go out shopping for because I didn’t own a shirt or tie nice enough to get into them. He is always the first person I call when this happens, which has been more often as of late. 

“You look like shit. Spill, babe.”   
“I just didn’t want to be alone in the apartment,” I lie and sip my coffee. He raises a thin eyebrow.

“Is it your roommate? Are classes getting you down? Did you fight with your dad or Grimmjow or something?”

I try not to react but my jaw doesn’t listen and flexes hard, molars grinding in my ears. It seems so loud that I glance around and look for people who heard it too, but the only one staring at me is Shiji.

“Ichigo, I thought you said you were getting over him. You said Renji was enough for now and it was easier with the new place.”

“I know,” I sigh, running my hand against the back of my neck, “I thought I was too. He called me this morning.”

“He calls you a lot of mornings, you're his best friend,” he says with worried eyes. I hate that I do this to him, but I’ve learned from time that hiding it just hurts worse.

“Yeah, but this was at four in the morning. He said he had a fight with Rangiku and asked to come over for a couple hours. They had been going at it since they left a party she drug him along for around one.”

“And I’m sure you didn’t think to tell him no and to go to sleep like the rest of the world?” 

I stare at him for a few moments before dropping my eyes to my lap. I hear him tsk and take my hand.

“I’m sorry Ichi, I just don’t like how worked up he gets you. I know you’re just being a good friend. Go on, now.”

“He came over and bitched about the party for like an hour. Then he asked if I had any weed.”   
“Does this boy even know you,” Shin smirked and drank from his mug. I can’t help but crack a grin myself, although its feeble. 

“I tell him it’s in my bedroom, and I go to get it. I turn around after I pull my stuff out of the drawer and he’s right behind me, silent as he fucking ever was even though he’s bigger than seventy percent of the country.”

“What happened,” he asks with wide ochre eyes. I wrap an arm around my middle, hating the habit I kept from childhood, but rub my side nonetheless. 

“He just sits down on the damn bed. So I do, too. I roll up, spark it, and we smoke and talk about school and his job and stuff like that. I guess we just gradually kind of laid down, and once I put the blunt out the sky was just starting to get light. He looks out the window, then at me, and then the bastard just puts an arm behind his head and goes to sleep.”

“Jesus, Ichigo,” Shinji shakes his head and runs a hand through his bangs. 

“What was I supposed to do? Kick him out? Like that wouldn’t have been transparent at all.”

“I get it but you can’t keep putting yourself through this.” 

He says it like he means it. I look out the window to avoid his eyes.

“I fell asleep too. When I woke up it was five pm and he had pulled me closer so we were all tangled together, like when he’d stay over after we got stoned as kids.”

“I really think you should get out of the city for a bit. Go see the girls for the weekend. Take the train east. Something,” Shinji says with his softest tone, the one he uses when he’s angry or scared. I can’t say anything. I ask him something about one of his classes and he looks like he’s going to push it, but instead he answers and talks for awhile about a meeting with his advisor. He knows it makes me feel better to hear about him. After another half hour he has me laughing at some outrageous story about a guy who tried to pick him up last weekend. I want to thank him but I don’t know how, so I just hope to myself he knows that I’m grateful. He has to get to the library before it gets too late so we gather our things and he gives me a big hug, chin digging into my shoulder a bit as he tries to match my height. When we’re back on the sidewalk about to head opposite ways he takes my hand.

“Promise me you’ll think about that little vacation, okay? I’ll even go with you if you want. We can pick up old rich men who detest their wives at an onsen and live the rest of our days in comfort.”

I smile and nod, putting a hand on his shoulder before turning around and walking to the station.

When I get back to the apartment, fumbling with my keys in front of the door, I smell salt and fried food. Once I manage to get in and kick off my shoes, I round the corner to the kitchen and see Renji, hair up in a bun and wearing a Kyoto University hoodie. He’s dutily flipping mushrooms and zucchini in a skillet with brown sauce. He’s so transfixed he doesn’t turn to me until I come to his side at the stove and pick up a piece of karaage with his cooking chopsticks, popping it into my mouth. It’s a little too hot still but tastes great. I wonder for not the first time exactly where this guy came from.

“Hey, you,” he finally looks at me with a smile, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. It skirts the line between the roommates we are during the day and lovers we sometimes are at night. I shouldn’t lead him on, and the guilt will hit me in the gut for it later, but I lean into his chest anyway. 

“What’s the occasion, chef?”

“Nothing really, I just don’t feel like going out and getting fucked up on a Thursday so I figured we could eat in and watch some tv. If you don’t have any plans already,” he says with a little bit of uncertainty and pink cheeks. I can’t help but smirk a little.

“I guess if I get your cooking out of it, it can’t be that bad,” I say as I pick up another piece of chicken and hold it out to him. He takes it between his teeth and manages to actually look relieved. It worries me a little. I distract him by excusing myself to get changed into something more comfortable while he finishes dinner. I make sure to shut my bedroom door behind me before deflating.

As I strip off my jeans and pull on flannel sleep pants in their place my brain flashes to the exact place it shouldn’t: Grimmjow’s soft, unexplained smile in the young light of dawn before he settled next to me to sleep. I had changed some details when recounting the night to Shin, afraid of what he might say. Grimmjow hadn’t gotten closer to me in the middle of night by mistake. He smiled at me, stoned and happy for the first time in a while.  Then he had lifted his left arm and, before tucking it behind his head, used it to pull me next to him, head under his chin and resting on his shoulder. Stiff and unsure, he noticed how tense I was. Ever so quietly, so I could barely hear, he whispered to me.

_ “It’s okay, I just miss seeing you all the time. Relax, Ich.” _

The words ring through my head then down my throat and into my stomach, which seized at the memory. I tell myself it was just as he said; he just misses being around his friend. But the part about myself that I hate the most whispers evil contradictions into my head. It says maybe it’s more than that, maybe it’s not just friends, maybe he feels it too. I hate the hope in me so much that I pull my jeans back on, go to the kitchen, and ask Renji if we can eat dinner and watch movies later and go out for drinks first. He looks puzzled and a little concerned and I think I’m going to break in half when he finally says he’ll go get dressed.

He gets me home three and a half hours later so drunk I can barely stand, heats up the food, and makes my plate. He puts a horror flick on and after I devour the meal I lay down on the couch with my head on his stomach, letting him extend his legs and run his fingers through my hair with forced absentmindedness. I pretend I’m passed out when he says my name before kissing my forehead and carrying me to my bed, turning down the covers to make sure I don’t catch cold. 

When the door closes it hits me again.

_ Grimm never did anything like this, like Ren does. _

It crosses my mind, but even so I know the truth: it doesn’t matter.

He isn’t Grimmjow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kind reception to my newest trash. Here is chapter two. If you guys continue to enjoy this OOC bullshit please let me know in the comments and I'll keep updating as long as inspiration has it's hold on me.
> 
> Much love, friends.

I sit and watch the three women chatter back and forth and feel sick. I pull at the tie around my neck that won't ever belong there.

_ How did I get myself into this? _

It feels like the answer is complicated but the truth is simple: mostly my dick. Rangiku was hot and loud and fun. To her, I was the cool, dangerous kid from the other side of the tracks. The boy Daddy wouldn't let her date in university that she threw a fit over before he said he'd take her Acura. Now, I think I'm just a social project. Nothing more than a resume builder for her charity work. Proof that she can take the less fortunate and make them into functioning, non-smoking, gala-attending members of Japan's elitist community. That’s the worst part of sitting at the white linen-covered table in one of Tokyo's most exclusive hotel bars while she and her pets drink twenty-five hundred yen cocktails: knowing I basically proved her right. The words flash into my head before I can stop them.

_ I should have just stayed with Ichigo. _

I feel the guilt hit me like a freight train and I finish my scotch with a tilt of my neck, hoping to burn it out of my stomach. I knew I shouldn't have went there last night, knew I wouldn't be able to control myself when I haven't so much as spent the night in three months. But Ran just kept going, never the first to end an argument. It started after I saw some older guy with an arm around her shoulders at this office party she dragged me to. I went over and like the good little boy she made me asked who he was and why I hadn't been introduced. This man, this  _ guy _ , has the audacity to say he doesn't tend to introduce himself to catering staff at every function before turning back to Ran. But somehow the whole situation became my fault after I told him I was the boyfriend of the lady he has his arm around. Go figure. Ran lays into me the second we close the door to leave and the whole cab ride home, saying I had no right to speak to her boss like that.

By four in the morning I'd had enough, and just like always, there was only one person who I could call.

From the time I stepped foot on the soil of this pathetic country, I've been given nothing but disappointment. Not that I was dealt a particularly fair hand to begin with. Father was German and Japanese, a kind contradiction of a man, but busy. Mother was French, and he met her when he was stationed there with the Navy. Seven months later he brought her back to this cursed island very pregnant and very scared. She missed her family and her country, her beautiful language that she couldn’t use anymore. Father told her that after she had the baby she would feel better, and at first she did. But then something went wrong. He said she wasn't the Helene that he met in Paris.

The doctors called it postpartum psychosis. I didn't know what that meant then. All I knew when I was four is that Mother came to my room at night and told me she was taking me away to a beautiful place, and she did. Even though Mother was sick and didn't want me around, France was so much better than this. It had sprawling countrysides and quiet towns with nice people who left their doors unlocked at night. When she drove our car into the river three years later in a steady Spring shower, I was the only one who made it out of the water. The social workers came, told me they found my father and that he wanted me home. I got there, and it wasn't the world I was used to, but at least I still had someone. Father was around more than ever, cancelling meetings and rescheduling conference calls so he could make up for lost time. I thought one day, Japan could really be home. I saw the face of the social worker who came the next time, a year after I got back, and I knew it was the same. He was hit in the street getting out of his car by a drunk who walked away with no more than contusions. I guess you could say I knew the world wasn't fair early on.

It all felt a little less hopeless after I met Ichigo, though. I remember how angry I was when the ministry of welfare took me and enrolled me at that tiny school in tiny Karakura. My appearance did me no favors, but the real problem was that I had no idea what anyone was saying. Mother taught me French until I came back at seven, and Father usually used French and English, but he had taught me a little bit over the year I spent with him. For all his efforts it wasn't enough for me to understand what the other kids were saying. Or my instructors, for that matter. On my first day at that school I learned the word gaijin, and that was all I needed to hear to know my mother was right about this place. When the older kids started pushing me around, I learned how to fight quick. I learned that the one good thing about being a gaijin was that it meant I was bigger and stronger. It also meant when I was jumped by a twelve year old, the school had to threaten to expel him for his part in it to get the parents to agree not to file charges. I bit through most of his finger then fractured his cheekbone.

Ichigo introduced himself to me after all of this. I thought he was making fun of me honestly, calling himself "strawberry" to try and confuse me. But then he etched the kanji out and my pocket dictionary showed me the real meaning. I thought then that it was one of the noblest names I had ever heard, like he was some fallen prince of an old royal family. But he didn't look down on me like people usually did, and once he figured out that I knew almost none of the local tongue he spoke to me in English. He wasn’t as good as me or Father, but was better than most high school kids I met at the homes. Soon after I met his family, little twin sisters and two loving parents. They were the closest thing I've ever had to a regular family, especially compared to my own. I stayed at their house at least twice as much as I did my foster homes, so much that Masaki made four lunches every night after dinner and got worried if only three were gone from the fridge the next day. Then, Masaki died and I saw a little bit of the light in Ichigo's eyes leave. He became less of a child and more of a man very quickly. He didn’t ask his father Isshin for much, did laundry instead of playing video games, did the girls hair instead of teasing them, and learned how not to feel when anyone else was around. 

We did most of our firsts together, or at least around the same time. The first time we got drunk sitting on his roof, I had to hold him down with my hand over his mouth because he couldn't stop laughing. The first time we got high we went to the ramen shop around the corner and ate so much we both puked. When the time finally came to make our way out into the adult world for the first time we did that together, too. It was already clear from my barely passing scores that I had an ice cube's chance in the Christian Hell of getting into university. He, on the other hand, applied and was accepted to Rikkyo. I was there the day he got the letter out of his mailbox. I remember he whispered so softly I couldn't hear what he said, so I took the letter from his hands. I called everyone he considered a friend even though they never really trusted me and bought enough beer to intoxicate a militia. When everyone else had passed out and it was just he and I left on the balcony, I lit a cigarette and handed him his first one, leaning down so he could light it against mine. As the smoke swirled he started to fumble for words, equally from the alcohol and nervousness. Finally, he asked me what I was going to do after the year ended. I promised him then that I would follow him to Tokyo and anywhere else, if he'd have me.

When he coughed and sputtered hard on the cigarette and his face got red like it always did when he was embarrassed, I think that's when I knew I felt...different about him. Not just like he was my best friend, even though he was that too. When we got to the city he found time to help me get a job between classes, assignments, and his campus job. I worked hard and kept my head down at the garage even though caging my tongue against Zaraki's daily slanders wasn't always easy. I figured if nothing else I owed it to Ichi.

That first year of being on our own was better than anything else I could imagine, but it also meant a lot of changes neither of us understood. Sleeping in the same bed together as kids in the Kurosaki house was a hell of a lot different than falling asleep drunk on the couch together in our own apartment. There was more than one night that I woke up on the futon in the living room to find him half draped over my chest, sobering up instantly at the thought of how close we were and how easy it would be to finally cross the line. Instead, I would gently pull myself out from under him and spend the rest of the night on the fire escape trying to clear my head. I've known Ichigo was gay from close to the same time he knew it himself; if he had been attracted to me then it just makes sense he would have acted on it. He was worth too much to risk losing over unreturned impulses that I couldn't explain if I tried.

Then I met Rangiku and it all went straight to shit.  It wasn't that I didn't like her; she seemed like a nice enough girl at first. I figured if I couldn't have what I really wanted I minds well at least have someone who really wanted me. At first, I thought she did. But then she changed and it all went to hell. Six months ago I found myself standing in front of Ichigo telling him I had overstayed my welcome and a bunch of other excuses because she wanted me to live with her. What she really wanted was to control me so she could finish  _ making _ me what she wanted, but my pride wouldn't let me say that. I can't lie: it hurt when Ichigo told me he moved in with another student at Rikkyo. It hurt even worse when I drove past our old building and saw the futon on the curb with a black trash bag that I could smell bleach coming from, even from my car.

Even so, we still call each other almost every day. It isn't the same, and it isn't even close to enough, but it's better than nothing. It had been months since we’d gotten to spend quality time together until last night. I knew it was wrong and it probably would only alienate him further, but I couldn't help but pull him close as the green put me into a stupor. I wanted to feel the familiar weight of him on me, like I used to in the wee hours of the morning on that futon he threw away. The next day when he saw the pain in my face as I moved the shoulder I slept on wrong, he sat me on his bed without a word and lifted my shirt off. I thought he might have seen my nerves start to fray. But he just put oil on his hands and prodded with nimble fingers behind my shoulder blade, searching for something only he knew was there from the summers he spent working in Isshin's clinic. I thought he must feel my heart hammering through my ribs, but if he did he never mentioned it, and went to work on my muscles in the quiet of the early evening sun. He's always known exactly how to make me feel better. As I relaxed and his hands put more pressure on my back I couldn't help but wonder if maybe he didn't just do this because he was a good person, and maybe he did it for me.

I hate the hope I still have after all this time, after the slew of disappointments and failures that created the mess I am. I’ve never belonged anywhere but by Ichigo’s side. It isn’t exactly what I want, but it's a hell of a lot better than this.

"Better than what, dear," Rangiku snaps at me with wide eyes and her fake, don't-you-dare-embarrass-me-in-front-of-my-friends smile. I realize I must have thought the last part out loud. I take a breath and smile, watching the little glint of jealousy in her friend’s eyes, before looking at her.

"Nothing," I lie with a practiced facade, "but I'm not feeling very well and I know you ladies have a lot to catch up on. I was thinking I might excuse myself and meet you at home, if you don't mind?" The other girls blushed and turned to Rangiku, who seemed unsure as to whether she was pissed I was leaving her or impressed that I at least had tact.

"We wouldn't want you to strain yourself Jeagerjaques-san," said the petite dark haired girl, Hinamori, who was younger than the other two.

"And your job must be so demanding! I can imagine it tires you so, being on your feet all the time," said Isane, short silver hair reflecting the light as she tilted her head. I had never understood how these two girls had ended up friends with Ran, because they were actually pretty thoughtful, but she hides that part of herself well and they both come from money. I can see her purse her lips, irritated they agree with me, but she smiles and takes my hand.

"I'll see you back at the apartment, just be safe, okay?"

_ The only dangerous thing in my immediate vicinity is you, _ I think to myself, but instead of saying anything I grab the stiff suit jacket off the back of my chair and head towards the door. It's almost midnight by the time I hit the street and check my watch. A cab home will be about a twenty minute drive. My mind whispers that Ichigo's apartment is much closer, a fifteen minute walk, and it would save me the argument when Ran gets home. Another voice reminds me how awkward it will probably be after I got so close to him last night, and that going over to Ichigo's will make the inevitable fight a hell of a lot worse. I have my phone to my ear before I decide what I'm doing.

"Whaddya want," a lazy voice answers, and I can't help but grin.

"You've got to be kidding me, was the infamous Nnoitra Gilga in bed by midnight on a Friday? You must be dying."

"Shuddup," he hisses back with his thick Osaka accent, "just didn't have anyone ta go out with and there ain't nothin' better ta do."

"I'm about to give you something better to do. Meet me at Pinky's ASAP, I need a beer."

"Ya think I'm boutta drag myself outta this nice bed here fer yer dumbass then ya gotta be crazy," he grumbles, but I hear fabric rustling followed by the sound of heavy footsteps.

"Sounds like you already are," I say back with a grin.

"Whatever, see ya soon," he huffs and ends the call.

As I finished the short walk from the hotel to the bar I see my friend hasn't beat me there. Pulling on my suit jacket against the cold and reaching into its pocket, I fish out a cigarette case, thin enough to fit in my wallet so I can hide the habit Ran thinks I quit. I light up and examine it for the millionth time. The social worker who brought me the news about Father managed to get it from his personal items at the medical examiner's office, and it was the only asset of his worth anything that I got to keep. The rest of them were liquidated to pay off business and gambling debts that no one knew he had until he was gone and couldn't defend himself. It has his initials, which also happen to be mine, in elegant script engraved on the front surrounded by a brocade pattern. I had it appraised when I turned seventeen and was told it's actually platinum and worth a ridiculous amount of money. I wouldn't sell it for most anything.

"Well look at you lil' pretty boy, all dressed up an’ no place ta go, ne?"

I hear a series of cackling after and look up to find Nnoitra there, clapping me on the shoulder as he laughs at the monkey suit Rangiku insisted I wear. There are only two men on this miserable rock that can look down on me. One is my boss Zaraki, because he really does know a thing or two and has all his guy's best interests at heart. The other is this man, because he is probably the single largest living creature in the whole damn country. I'm not a small fry at six foot three, especially when compared to the average full-blooded Japanese guy, but I have the advantage of being European. Nnoitra on the other hand can trace seven generations of his family back to the same thirty kilometer radius of Osaka and stands at just a hair under seven foot two. I couldn't figure out at first whether he was some kind of freak who couldn't live without stilts or a circus performer on loan to the roofers who were fixing the garage at the time. Turns out he was just another mechanic, and although he looked a bit menacing I knew once we were introduced that I liked the guy right away.

From that first day, Nnoitra was loud and crass and unapologetic. The perfect stereotypical Osaka-born troublemaker, and I think that's why we’re good friends. Unlike just about everyone else on this godforsaken island, he doesn't look at me with that tiny glint of distrust and uncertainty in his eyes that other natives can't help but harbor. He jokes with me just like he would the people he grew up with and although he doesn't always have the best tact about it, is always honest. He told me he moved here about four years ago, a year ahead of me and Ichigo, with a girlfriend from his hometown. Eight months later it became clear she wasn't exactly cut out for the big city, but Nnoitra loved it. They parted ways and she went back to Osaka with family while he took extra hours at the garage to make it work on his own. Now he rooms with one of the other mechanics, Muguruma Kensei, and they manage comfortably. When I can't see Ichigo and don't want to be alone in my head, he's the one I call.

"Way to keep a guy waiting," I laugh and toss my cigarette to the curb. We head into Pinky's, a small pub-style bar owned and operated by a man with hair to match the place's name. He's a little strange with gold eyes and that bubblegum bob. But, he keeps the rowdy half-blue-collar, half-uni student crowd in line and makes great drinks. We both sit at the bar and order, a scotch on ice for me and beer for him. The chit-chat and standard pleasantries pass quickly and before long Nnoi gives me a severe side eye.

“Ya ready to tell me why I’m here yet er ya gonna take all night like a girl?”

“Just didn’t want to be alone in the apartment,” I lie and sip the drink in front of me. 

“Yeah an’ the earth is flat too, ne? C’mon now,” he scoffs. I stay quiet and swirl my drink in the glass. I see his fierce frown in my peripheral and can’t decide if now is the right time to tell him about Ichigo.

“It ain’t that broad messin’ with yer head again, is it,” he asks, managing to sound actually concerned, which makes me uncomfortable.

_ Not the right time. _

“Yeah I guess so,” I huff. 

“Well, get to talkin’ cause otherwise yer just gonna brood all night.”

“She took me to this work thing with her last night, and this guy who I found out is her boss was all over her. We got in this big blowup about it and I left and now she’s just even more pissed at me. I’m gonna hear about it all night after she’s back, especially if I’m not home first.”

“Ya left and went where? Don’t tell me this hoe actually had ya sleepin’ in the car ‘cause if ya do imma come help ya pack her stuff right now,” he asks serious enough that I believe him.

“No,” I sigh, “she didn’t even want me to leave. I went over to my friend from home’s place.”

“Oh, that Ichigo kid, yeah?”

“Yeah,” my voice cracks through my involuntarily tight throat.

“He mus’ be some type a friend to just let ya in at all hours.”

“We’ve known each other since we were eight, and I basically lived with him most of the time since then. He’s good like that, for always being there. I try to do the same.” 

If I was being honest, that was a lie. I wasn’t good to Ichi, not like he was to me. I missed his calls sometimes, I didn’t make time to see him, I’d broken plans for Rangiku and her miserable agenda, and I made excuses for all of it. I don’t notice how quiet it is until I hear Nnoitra clear his throat from my right.

“So...is there something ‘bout your friend yer wanna talk about,” he asks a little stiffly. 

“Well my friend, he has this...problem, he asked me to help with and I guess I don’t know what to tell him,” I lie.

“Whatssit?”

“So he’s gay, and he has another friend that he’s really close with, you know? He’s known him almost as long as we’ve known each other. He’s a nice guy, we went to school together. But Ichigo has feelings for him, and doesn’t think he feels the same way.”  
“That’s a tough spot,” Nnoitra remarks, giving me the eye and going quiet again.

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s just that since he doesn’t think the guy feels the same he’s worried if he tells him the truth, it’ll ruin the whole thing. Their friendship, or whatever. Ichigo has a boyfriend here too, but he’s not really happy with him. I don’t know what to tell him.”  
“Well, if he were asking me, I’d tell yer friend that they wouldn’t a been friends so damn long if this guy and him weren’t some type a compatible. They gotta get along so that ain’t nothin’. And if he’s unhappy with who he’s with then he oughta not be with him. That’s just a waste a time, even if his friend ain’t gonna take the guys place.”

I can’t help but stare at him as he grows quiet and finishes off his beer, banging the glass down. I’ve never heard Nnoitra talk so seriously about something before, or actually give decent feedback. He was such a carefree guy that he normally approached every situation thrown at him with a “fuck it, shit’ll go how it goes” attitude. I looked down at my own empty highball glass before standing and putting on my jacket.

“Done already? Ya always were a lightweight,” he cackles at me, and we both pay our tabs. Outside on the sidewalk, as we get ready to head separate ways, he stops me with a hand on my shoulder.

“Think ‘bout what I told ya ‘bout yer friend, ne? And let ‘im know if he needs anymore advice it’ll only cost ‘im a beer or seven. Goes for you too.”

“Yeah,” I say with my fake smile to cover up how tired I am. I head home to find Rangiku waiting on the sofa. She stands up when I come in before locking the door behind me and giving me a nasty look.

“You must be feeling better,” she spits in that pretty way she has of being a heinous bitch. I don’t say anything, which just spurs her on.

“I mean if you didn’t want to come out with me and my friends Grimmjow all you had to do was say something. I’m sure we’re just so boring for you. You’d probably rather be at the bar with your buddies being drunken slobs than spend time with your  _ girlfriend. _ And that’s not to say anything about the fairy who had his hands all over you this morning-”

“Leave him out of this,” I growl, feeling the rage start to crawl up from my stomach, to my chest, to my esophagus. “He never did anything to you.”

“Except try to steal my boyfriend. Right.”  
“What the hell do you know about him,” I yell back, and she smirks at the fact that she could get me riled up.

“I know that when you don’t want to see me you go to him. I know that you two have been sharing beds together since you were kids. And I know for goddamn sure that he’s a giant fucking fag.”

I can’t stop myself once the words are out of her mouth. When the red clears from my eyes she’s fallen onto the couch behind her, breathing hard with fear even though she manages to keep her face angry. I’m supporting my weight on the back of the couch over her head with one arm, the other raised in the air over both of us. I wait for the sound of blood to stop thumping in my ears, then lower my arm and back away slowly.

“You,” she calls in a shaky voice from behind, “you were going to fucking hit me. _Hit me_ , Grimmjow. Over him?”  
“You brought him into this”, I mumbled, tired and detached.

“It shouldn’t matter! Why do you care about that loser so much? He’s so poor he lives in less than six hundred square feet, he couldn’t even dream of going to Rikkyo if he didn’t have all those grants and scholarships,” she screams back at me. I look at her and for the first time in a while I see how ugly she really is. I can’t help but laugh at her before going into our bedroom and snatching a duffle bag out of the closet. I throw in a couple uniforms and some tee shirts and sweats before grabbing a hoodie off the back of a chair and head towards the door. She’s blocking it by the time I get within a few feet.

“Are you just going to run away every time I say something you don’t like,” she asks with her hands on her hips, but it doesn’t have nearly as much venom in it as I expect.

“I just don’t want to fight about this petty shit anymore, and I don’t want to hear you talk about my best friend that way after all he’s done for me.”

“I don’t want to fight either,” she says, uncrossing her arms and making her way over to me. She puts her small, delicate hands against my chest and looks up at me before wrapping her slender arms around my stomach. I try not to pull away.

“Look, why don’t you just let me make you feel better,” she says, her fake-sincere eyes turning into seductive ones. She takes my hand and leads me to the bed. An hour or so goes by, and I mostly try to ignore what happens or spend my time thinking about someone else. When we’re done she lays her head on me and falls asleep, quiet breaths staining my chest and hair making my neck itch. The weight of her on top of me should be a comfort, but instead it feels like a sick joke. It feels so  _ wrong,  _ even though at first I can’t put my finger on why. Then, around three when I finally manage to leave the bed and go to the veranda without waking her, it hits me.

_ Her weight feels nothing like Ichigo. _

That’s exactly the problem. 


End file.
